I'm surprised about Kool Keith being on this list, were these shows recent? I saw him in the 90's and thought it was a great show. I even caught the fried chicken. It was delicious.
Kool Keith doesn't strike me as the most consistent guy in the world.
for me, it was always the local "emcee battles." So bad.
So so bad.
I say "was," because I haven't been to a rapping show in forever...slipped up and went to GZA "show" last year, where he stood on stage in front of a bunch of dudes (who looked just like you'd expect them to) and let them recite his songs en masse...that was pretty bad too...yet good, because it vindicated my rap-show-avoidance policy of the previous five or so years.
nas at that expo 86 club (i forget the name), vancouver 96ish - had 6-7 cats on stage with him and he had to fast fwd his own DAT. lame show, fun night though.
wu tang first ave mpls 2007 - can't stand seeing 30 dudes on stage with everyone saying the lyrics but the person who performed them on record. same scene, towels, water bottles, too much noise.
jeru showbox seattle 1995? - opening for dj shadow. dude took a blunt of that pacific nw purple to the head thinking he was the weed god cause he could do that with that ny stuff. proceeded to forget lyrics and actually start songs over. shadow was boring too.
i've been to more lame rap shows than i could possibly remember.
KRS has performed one of the best and one of the worst shows I've ever seen,
The f*cking truth. First time I saw him was at the Maritime Hall in the mid 90s and I'm pretty sure it wasn't even THAT great of a show compared to what he probably was doing five years earlier but when he teased the crowd with a little "The Bridge Is Over" and then actually went into the song, I thought all the jumping heads would break the floor. It was pretty righteous and nuts and you realized "oh, this is why KRS is godly."
But then, not long after, I saw him again and he was on his whole metaphysical shit and not only was just a momentum killer...it just gave off this vibe that KRS was slightly out of his mind.
for me, it was always the local "emcee battles." So bad.
MC battles >>>> DJ battles. By a LONG shot!
they'd do them together...combo-deal. 6 minutes of a dude doing bboy poses while mouthing gangstarr disses, followed by some horrible kid superscientifically behemoth unrelated wordsmith-ering dribble-king pinky-ring OH YOU LOOK LIKE A GAY RETARD-ing for another five...
blather, rinse, repeat
...while the promoter dude screams at everyone to give it up and recognize real and whatever-the-F...
I'd also add: Hip Hop in the Park in Oakland in 1993. I'm sure the show was probably better than I remembered but I was mostly there to hear the Coup and Souls of Mischief and they didn't get onto until the very end when the show was WAY overtime and thus, got rushed off very quickly and seemed rather flustered by that.
30 dudes on stage with everyone saying the lyrics but the person who performed them on record. same scene, towels, water bottles, too much noise.
Damn near every rap show I've seen in the past five years or so. Also, more often than not, they do the whole "just play my CD--not the instrumentals, but the store-bought album--and me and my boys will yell on top of it" thing.
tim dog/ almighty r.s.o. one in the chamba had a lil buzz.... when it was time for them to perfrom, the promoter had to walk across the stage right before they got on. bad move. they let him walk, and as soon as he got off the stage...superfly snuka style...about 15 dudes stomped him.
jeru showbox seattle 1995? - opening for dj shadow. dude took a blunt of that pacific nw purple to the head thinking he was the weed god cause he could do that with that ny stuff. proceeded to forget lyrics and actually start songs over. shadow was boring too.
Haha, I caught this tour in Chicago at the Park West. It's not the worst I've seen, but considering the talent is was crazy tepid. Granted, it was a Sunday night, so heads (especially the white college hipster Shadow-jockers) weren't trying to get real buck, but it was still a disappointment. Same shit as Otto; Shadow was pretty boring, his between-act DJ sets were rough, and Jeru berated us multiple times for not being hype enough. Latyrx opened and they were the best part of that show, if that tells you anything.
KRS has performed one of the best and one of the worst shows I've ever seen, just a couple years apart. Seeing him around the time of the "KRS-One" LP was some of the most amazing live performance of ANY kind I've seen... I can only imagine what it must've been like around the time they were recording "Hardcore Worldwide".
I saw him during the same era, and it was great.
Almost without exception, all the best live rap shows I've seen have been by artists who debuted in the eighties. Subsequent generations of rappeurs have become far too dependant upon the studio and have no idea how to rock a stage.
De La Soul, spent what seemed like half the damn show trying to determine what side of the venue "real hip hop was at" & getting to people to yell "ho!" at the top of their breath from side to side of the venue & "wave yo hands" etc etc.
=every De La show in the last 10 years.........
I saw them for FREE and they made me want to demand a refund. Biz was on the bill, as was Pharoah Monche, and they were good (except that Biz was on the bill to look like he would be a featured act, and he dj'd all night behind the scenes-no rapping or performance), so it wasn't a total loss. This was when they were pushing the first of Art-Official-Intelligence LPs, and the club had people waiting in winter weather outside for hours before anyone got in.
seeing biz perform just a friend live was pretty fun too that was probably the most fun i've had at a show.
edit: for even more Biz fun zany antics. I saw him after the show at a 7-11 browsing the aisles for snacks with a face covered in powdered sugar from the donuts he was eating with two arm-fulls of snacks sweaty and smelling gross. I just said, the show was cool biz, I had a great time and walked away.
...slipped up and went to GZA "show" last year, where he stood on stage in front of a bunch of dudes (who looked just like you'd expect them to) and let them recite his songs en masse...that was pretty bad too...yet good, because it vindicated my rap-show-avoidance policy of the previous five or so years.
I saw gza twice and he was so so f*cking awful both times Luckily the first time i was drunk as a f*ck and booed and heckled the F*CK out of him and I know his sorry ass heard me. i was hoarse after the show but man I felt vindicated.
second time - he sucked total ass again. I kept my cool that time tho as i got in free and was sober. Ive never been able to listen to his shit since then without feeling disgusted.
my advice - if you see a wack show then HECKLE - make em feel embarassed - let them know they suck.
Almost without exception, all the best live rap shows I've seen have been by artists who debuted in the eighties. Subsequent generations of rappeurs have become far too dependant upon the studio and have no idea how to rock a stage.
TRUTH
Motherfu[/b]ckers have no idea what the term "stage presence" means anymore.
For whatever reason it has to be memorably awful for one reason or another... I'll kick things off with the RZA. He had a bunch of guys on stage. Nobody knew who the fug they were. They basically karaoke'd wu-tang songs. The RZA seemed tore up and you didnt get more than a mumble out of him. Lucky my ticket was free!
i think a lot of rap guys get lazy performing outside of the US and i am sure Wu Tang are on top of the list... they can be either great or terrible... i've seen RZA twice and he was good both times...
i saw ODB solo once and it had all the elements of a bad show, but for some reason it was one of the greatest/most interesting/funniest/dirtiest rap shows i've seen!
I saw Necro about 10 years ago, and it wasn't even that is was trainwreck terrible, it was just... void. It was a really small club in NY (Brownies I think) and he still had 4 or 5 dudes with the towels and all that, and he had no DJ, he cued up his own instrumental tracks on a DAT machine that was sitting on a barstool. 10 minutes after I left I couldn't remember a damn thing about it and other than what I just described I still can't. Which I think is worse than a complete mess of a show that you remember for just that reason.
or towels on their heads like they were just on a exercise bike
I saw Raekwon in SF about 9 years ago. He came out wearing a towel with a hole in the middle so he could wear it over his head--you know, like a thirsty poncho. He was super drunk and opened by saying, "Frisco, it's some fine-ass power U up in here! Yo, I'm fuuuuuuuuuuucked up."
Then he launched into a few songs, but he kept forgetting the lyrics and saying, "I forgot my shit, yo!"
mos def show I saw about a few yrs ago comes most readily to mind. showed up 2 hrs late and performed about 30 seconds of each of the tracks off that new danger terd and then was pissed that we weren;t into it. we heckled him and left early.
Comments
Oh yeah, he was wild late too, the word was that he was holed up in the hotel room with some whores.
Kool Keith doesn't strike me as the most consistent guy in the world.
nah, he was at tower looking at his own cd's.
So so bad.
I say "was," because I haven't been to a rapping show in forever...slipped up and went to GZA "show" last year, where he stood on stage in front of a bunch of dudes (who looked just like you'd expect them to) and let them recite his songs en masse...that was pretty bad too...yet good, because it vindicated my rap-show-avoidance policy of the previous five or so years.
MC battles >>>> DJ battles. By a LONG shot!
wu tang first ave mpls 2007 - can't stand seeing 30 dudes on stage with everyone saying the lyrics but the person who performed them on record. same scene, towels, water bottles, too much noise.
jeru showbox seattle 1995? - opening for dj shadow. dude took a blunt of that pacific nw purple to the head thinking he was the weed god cause he could do that with that ny stuff. proceeded to forget lyrics and actually start songs over. shadow was boring too.
i've been to more lame rap shows than i could possibly remember.
The f*cking truth. First time I saw him was at the Maritime Hall in the mid 90s and I'm pretty sure it wasn't even THAT great of a show compared to what he probably was doing five years earlier but when he teased the crowd with a little "The Bridge Is Over" and then actually went into the song, I thought all the jumping heads would break the floor. It was pretty righteous and nuts and you realized "oh, this is why KRS is godly."
But then, not long after, I saw him again and he was on his whole metaphysical shit and not only was just a momentum killer...it just gave off this vibe that KRS was slightly out of his mind.
they'd do them together...combo-deal. 6 minutes of a dude doing bboy poses while mouthing gangstarr disses, followed by some horrible kid superscientifically behemoth unrelated wordsmith-ering dribble-king pinky-ring OH YOU LOOK LIKE A GAY RETARD-ing for another five...
blather, rinse, repeat
...while the promoter dude screams at everyone to give it up and recognize real and whatever-the-F...
Damn near every rap show I've seen in the past five years or so. Also, more often than not, they do the whole "just play my CD--not the instrumentals, but the store-bought album--and me and my boys will yell on top of it" thing.
one in the chamba had a lil buzz.... when it was time for them to perfrom, the promoter had to walk across the stage right before they got on. bad move. they let him walk, and as soon as he got off the stage...superfly snuka style...about 15 dudes stomped him.
Haha, I caught this tour in Chicago at the Park West. It's not the worst I've seen, but considering the talent is was crazy tepid. Granted, it was a Sunday night, so heads (especially the white college hipster Shadow-jockers) weren't trying to get real buck, but it was still a disappointment. Same shit as Otto; Shadow was pretty boring, his between-act DJ sets were rough, and Jeru berated us multiple times for not being hype enough. Latyrx opened and they were the best part of that show, if that tells you anything.
I saw him during the same era, and it was great.
Almost without exception, all the best live rap shows I've seen have been by artists who debuted in the eighties. Subsequent generations of rappeurs have become far too dependant upon the studio and have no idea how to rock a stage.
I saw them for FREE and they made me want to demand a refund. Biz was on the bill, as was Pharoah Monche, and they were good (except that Biz was on the bill to look like he would be a featured act, and he dj'd all night behind the scenes-no rapping or performance), so it wasn't a total loss. This was when they were pushing the first of Art-Official-Intelligence LPs, and the club had people waiting in winter weather outside for hours before anyone got in.
that was probably the most fun i've had at a show.
edit: for even more Biz fun zany antics. I saw him after the show at a 7-11 browsing the aisles for snacks with a face covered in powdered sugar from the donuts he was eating with two arm-fulls of snacks sweaty and smelling gross. I just said, the show was cool biz, I had a great time and walked away.
I saw gza twice and he was so so f*cking awful both times
Luckily the first time i was drunk as a f*ck and booed and heckled the F*CK out of him and I know his sorry ass heard me. i was hoarse after the show but man I felt vindicated.
second time - he sucked total ass again. I kept my cool that time tho as i got in free and was sober. Ive never been able to listen to his shit since then without feeling disgusted.
my advice - if you see a wack show then HECKLE - make em feel embarassed - let them know they suck.
TRUTH
Motherfu[/b]ckers have no idea what the term "stage presence" means anymore.
i think a lot of rap guys get lazy performing outside of the US and i am sure Wu Tang are on top of the list... they can be either great or terrible... i've seen RZA twice and he was good both times...
I saw Raekwon in SF about 9 years ago. He came out wearing a towel with a hole in the middle so he could wear it over his head--you know, like a thirsty poncho. He was super drunk and opened by saying, "Frisco, it's some fine-ass power U up in here! Yo, I'm fuuuuuuuuuuucked up."
Then he launched into a few songs, but he kept forgetting the lyrics and saying, "I forgot my shit, yo!"
Bad, even for a Wu member.
BAN.